My sister called a couple of weeks ago. She had missed most of the news while she was traveling. Her first question was whether we were the guys with Grace. She was more pissed off that we'd hidden the relationship from her than anything else.
"I'm not talking to my sister about who I'm screwing, Annie!"
"It's different when she's the daughter of the president!" she yells back over the phone. "I'm reading it in a tabloid right now!"
"The shit in the tabloids will stop soon enough if no one keeps feeding it.”
"You and Noah were really with the First Daughter," she says in disbelief. "Like, the three of you. Together-together?"
I exhale heavily. "Fuck, Annie, I don't know anymore, okay?" I exclaim. "I thought we were. I thought she was with us."
"She was your girlfriend?" Annie asks, her tone softening.
"I thought so. But obviously I was wrong."
"So you and Noah both like her? Do you love her?"
"I don't know, Annie," I groan. "Why the fuck are we even talking about this?"
"It's not a hard question, Aiden," she says. "I wasn't asking you how to split an atom. I was asking if you guys love her or not. It's yes or no."
"Fuck, Annie, yes, okay? I do. I'm pretty sure Noah does, too. Does that make you happy? Your man-whore brother finally fell in love– with a girl he has to share– and she's chosen to go to rehab rather than publicly admit she's with him."
Annie is silent for a moment. "No, that doesn't make me happy, A-hole," she says. "And it obviously doesn't make you happy either. So why don’t you man up and do something about it– you and Noah?"
"She's been taken off by the White House to fake rehab in hiding someplace, Annie," I say, my voice tired. "We have no idea where the hell she is and no one is giving us that information. Besides, even if we knew, it’s not like we could break in and force her to talk to us.”
"Well, then, get creative."
Vi shows up on our doorstep, barging into the house without a word and walking straight into the living room like she owns the place. “Nice digs,” she comments. “Very grown-up for athletes.”
“Did you come here to comment on our interior decorating, or do you have news about Grace?” I ask.
Noah crosses his arms. “Like where the fuck is she?”
“She’s home,” Vi tells us.
“She’s home?” I ask. Un-fucking-believable. She’s been silent for a month, and now she’s home– not more than a hundred yards away from us– and we’ve had exactly zero communication from her. No text message, no email, nothing. “Like, right-beside-this-place, home?”
Vi nods. “She doesn’t know I’m here.”
Noah groans his frustration. “So she disappears for a month and then comes back to her house, which is right beside my place, and doesn’t even bother to say, oh, I don’t know– ‘Hello, sorry I disappeared, I’m back’?”
“Look, don’t get all pissy with me,” Vi says. “Like I said, she doesn’t even know I’m here. In fact, I’ve been expressly forbidden to talk to you.”
“Why the hell would you be forbidden to talk to us?” I ask. “I can understand Grace being upset about what happened– fuck, the media has been all over it. She’s been in every damn tabloid in the country. But she can’t be pissed off at us for not fessing up to being with her when she decided to run off to some bullshit rehab for the last month– ”
Vi interrupts me. “Her parents convinced her to do it,” she says.
“Yeah, we gathered that. We got a visit from the First Lady,” Noah grumbles. “She made it clear that we shouldn’t have ever expected Grace to slum it with guys like us. White trash athletes don’t get with girls like her, right? Grace clearly chose her path, and that’s what she wants to do. So if you have something else to say that doesn’t involve rubbing that fact in our faces, say it so you can get the hell out of my house.”
“Grace didn’t choose not to slum it with you two, as you so eloquently put it,” Vi says. “She chose not to take your careers down in flames with her image.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I ask.
“Did you really honestly think Grace would choose to walk away from you because you’re athletes and not billionaires or politicians?” Vi asks. “You can’t be that dense.”
“She could have come to us,” I say. “You took off with her that night. You could have brought her here, and we would have protected her. Instead, you ran off with her and the next thing we hear is from the First Lady. And the fucking newspapers. Everything else is radio silence– from both of you.”
“I’m her best friend,” Vi says. “But she’s a big girl who makes her own decisions. And her decision was to do what was best for you.”
“I don’t even know what the hell that means,” Noah says, his voice loud. “How was this what was best for anyone other than her parents?”
Vi exhales loudly. “The First Lady had everyone who knew anything about the three of you together silenced– not killed, I mean, just paid off– in exchange for Grace going along with the ‘nervous breakdown’ story.”
“Why would she do that?” I ask. “We would have come out as the guys involved. I’m not fucking ashamed of any of it!”
“Because of your contracts, obviously,” Vi says. “Grace knew that Noah was about to sign a contract worth millions –”
“I’d already signed it,” Noah interrupts.
“What?” Vi asks.
“I’d already signed the contract. That was one of the things I was going to tell her at the fundraiser before we… before everything happened. I’d signed the contract earlier. It was a done deal. She went along with this because she thought it would protect us?”
“It’s Grace,” Vi says, sighing. “Of course she went along with it. She’s always worried about helping everyone before herself. It’s her biggest flaw.”
“Why wouldn’t she just come talk to us about it?” I ask.
“Because if it came down to it, she didn’t want you to have to make the choice between her or your careers. She didn’t want you to resent her for it.” Vi exhales. “And I was okay going along with it, because it’s what she wanted. But she’s not happy, and I’m hoping you’re not happy either.”
“Of course we’re not fucking happy,” I snap.
“Well, then, do something about it. She’s right next door.”
“So we should break the door down and talk some sense into her?” Noah asks, his voice gravelly.
“Well, my advice would be to finesse it just a little bit more than that,” Vi suggests. “She might have been misguided, but she still thinks that by staying away from you, she’s protecting you. And she’s been through a hell of a month. It was hard enough to convince her to come back to her house instead of living in hiding for the next year, or moving to the other side of the world.”
I think of the shit she’s been through– the stories that have been written about her, the names she’s been called– and realize that Noah and I haven’t faced any of that.
And she did it because she thought she was protecting us.
46
Grace
It’s my first night back in my house, and this place is shut up tighter than Fort Knox. The shades on the windows are drawn, the doors are dead-bolted shut, and my new private bodyguards are posted in the backyard, the front yard, and in front of my gate. I told my parents I was refusing Secret Service protection– I liked Brooks and Davis well enough, but there’s no way I was letting a security detail report my every move to my parents now– but there are two unmarked SUVs parked down the road from my house watching me anyway.
The neighborhood had to hire an additional security guy for the front gate because of all of the reporters, and despite the increased security, my bodyguards still had to get rid of two reporters who had managed to find their way to the front of my house earlier today.
My neighborhood wants me gone.
Over the past month, I’ve gotten death threa
ts, been called every name in the book, and been pretty much vilified in the national media. People have expressed their sympathies for my parents or declared them the worst parents in the history of the universe.
I didn’t go to rehab, although it probably would have been better than hiding out for the last month in the “undisclosed location” my parents arranged. Yesterday, I was discharged and “requesting personal space in this trying time” as I recover.
The truth is, the last month has been a terribly shitty one– but not because of all of the media craziness or because people in America think I’m either the sluttiest girl in the world or the epitome of sexual liberation, depending on who you ask. It’s been terrible because I’ve had to stay away from Noah and Aiden, despite wanting to email them or text them or call them and just say this was all some kind of awful joke and I’d see them at home.
I wanted to call them a million times this month and tell them that I regretted going along with my mother’s plan to keep me under the radar.
I also wanted to tell them that I didn’t regret anything that happened with them.
Instead, I developed a slight obsession with Colorado football while I was away, watching the sports channels’ videos of their training camp and trying to catch a glimpse of them. I felt responsible when I read that Noah got angry and stormed out of a media session, and when sports commentators described Noah and Aiden's overly aggressive attitudes on the field.
But tonight, my regret is magnified about a thousand times as I sit here inside my house that’s as silent as a tomb. I peer through the curtains that cover the window to my deck, momentarily contemplating going out to the deck and sitting in the evening summer air, the way I would have before.
You need to get back to the way things were before, Grace.
Get back to your old routine.
Stop hiding.
All sage pieces of advice from Vi, except that assumes everything can go back to what it was before.
I try not to look at Noah and Aiden’s house, but it’s impossible not to, and of course the second I do, everything I’ve tried to suppress for the last month– everything I felt before– comes rushing to the surface. And in an instant, I can’t breathe. In an instant, my chest feels like it’s being crushed by an enormous weight, and I’m sitting on the floor trying to catch my breath.
I can’t stay here. It was a stupid, stupid idea to think that I could just come back to my house– right beside theirs– and everything would be normal.
I don’t know how long I sit like that on my bedroom floor with my back to the French doors before I hear buzzing, quickly followed by a gunshot. Before I even pull open the bedroom door, my bodyguard is tearing up the stairs and inside my bedroom. “You’re safe, ma’am.”
“I heard–“
“It was one of those drones,” he says. “The tabloids use them to get aerial views of their targets and take photos of them. It’s been neutralized.”
“A drone,” I repeat numbly. For a second, my heart stops beating. No, it wouldn’t be Noah and Aiden. It couldn’t be. It would be a reporter. Thirty-three days ago, I basically told Noah and Aiden I wanted nothing more to do with them– not in so many words, but my actions were clear.
“One of the other members of the security team is in the backyard with the evidence. The FBI has already been contacted.”
“Can I just…” I shouldn’t even go outside. I should ignore what just happened, close up the house, and get out of here. I should have packers move everything and find a new place, somewhere far from all of this.
Except I don’t.
I walk out onto the balcony, even as my well-meaning bodyguard protests, looking down onto the yard where the drone has been blown to smithereens. And where there are– what the hell?- hundreds of little quarter-sized glowing circles scattered through the grass, an explosion of glow-in-the-dark…
No.
I squint at the grass before looking up at Noah and Aiden’s house. Their lights are on, but I don’t see any movement inside the house and I can’t see into their yard.
Still, I ask anyway.
“What are the… the things in the yard?”
The bodyguard clears his throat. “They’re prophylactics, ma’am.”
“Excuse me?”
“Condoms.”
“Condoms,” I repeat flatly. “Glow-in-the-dark condoms.”
“Yes, ma’am. Clearly it’s the work of someone mentally ill or–”
Or…
I look back over at Noah and Aiden’s house.
“Was there anything else?”
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
“Anything else. Was there anything else that was left in my yard?”
“Ma’am, you can trust us to do our jobs,” he says. “You hired us to protect you not only from threats to your safety, but also threats to your mental health. Our job is to intercept messages from the people who might be fixated on you because of–”
“Yes. I understand.” My heart is beating a thousand times a minute now. “But was there anything else left? I need to know.”
“There was a…” He clears his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “There was a doll. An inflatable doll.”
“A blow-up doll.” I look over at Noah and Aiden’s house again.
After all I’ve done to keep their identities secret, they wouldn’t dare jeopardize everything the first day I came home, would they?
And worse, why does the thought of that make my breath catch in my throat?
Why does it send hope surging through me for the first time in a month?
“Yes, ma’am. Obviously, we’ll be intercepting some disturbing things as you get settled back into your routine, but my experience is these things do tend to die down fairly quickly, even if it doesn’t seem like it in the moment.”
He’s trying to be encouraging, but the only thing I can focus on is the blow-up doll.
“Was there a note?”
“Pardon?”
“With the blow-up doll. Was there a note with it?”
“Ma’am, I really don’t think that knowing the details is a positive–”
“Was there a note?” I snap.
“I believe so, ma’am.”
“Show it to me.”
“Ma’am, in my experience, these sickos who send these kinds of things really–”
“I want to see it,” I say, my voice shaking. “Please show me the note.”
“It will be considered evidence at this point and– please don’t do anything rash.”
But I’m already headed downstairs and to the front door, my bodyguard in tow. I don’t go to the backyard where the remnants of the drone and the condoms and the blow-up doll are. Instead, I walk down the driveway, ignoring the bodyguard’s advice to stay away from the gate and the road in front of the house.
I don’t know what I’m doing. My thoughts are swirling around in my head as I walk. I’ve had an entire month to do nothing except think about what happened with Noah and Aiden, and why I did what I did.
I had resolved to be okay with my choice to adhere to my parents’ plan.
I rationalized it. I told myself it was the best possible decision I could make in a shitty situation.
Except that right now none of that makes sense in the face of what has to be Noah and Aiden’s completely stupid attempt at reaching out to me.
Now, my decision seems idiotic as I push open the front gate and ignore the guard posted there who tells me to stay inside.
“I’m not a prisoner in my own house, am I?” I ask absently, looking around for any sign of Noah and Aiden.
For a minute, I wonder if it’s all in my head. This could have been a sick person’s idea of a joke.
Except that there they are.
The gate to Noah’s house opens and there they are, walking out of it, wearing… trench coats? In the middle of the summer, with their bare legs sticking out underneath.
Are they about to flash me?
Even after all that’s happened, the thought immediately sends a pang of arousal straight to my core, and mentally I curse myself for my attraction to these guys who thought that sending a note-carrying blow-up doll and glow-in-the-dark condoms was an appropriate way to say hello.
These men, the ones who send drones to my house, are the men I tried to protect by hiding out and pretending to have lost my mind – when clearly, they’re the crazy ones.
The crazy men who are standing in front of me in their trench coats and what I assume is absolutely nothing else underneath, while one of the bodyguards yells at them to back away from me.
The insane men who break into the widest grins I’ve ever seen as I stand there, so that I can’t remember why the hell I ever thought that keeping this a secret was a good idea in the first place.
“We have a hell of a lot to say to you, sugar,” Aiden starts.
One of the bodyguards interrupts. “Back away from the First Daughter.”
But I put my hand up. “It’s okay. I know them. They’re my–” I pause, realizing I’m about to say boyfriends, but that’s not accurate because they’re not anymore, are they?
“Say it, Grace,” Noah orders, his expression intense. “Say what you were about to say.”
But I don’t. I close my mouth, and then I open my mouth again, and then I close it again, and then I open it again. Like a fish. “I was about to ask if you’re planning on flashing me.”
“Well, now, that all depends,” Aiden says. “Are you planning on admitting you were wrong?”
“Admitting that I was wrong?!” I ask. “I just spent a month pretending to have had a nervous breakdown so my psychopathic parents wouldn’t out you two as the guys fucking me at the fundraiser!”
My voice is too loud. Way too damn loud. And I'm yelling in the middle of the street.
One of the bodyguards clears his throat behind me, and I realize they’re right behind me. “Um.” I clear my own throat. “Could I have a few minutes, please?”
Double Team: A Menage Romance Page 29